


Strength

by Johnlockforthewin



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Bed-Wetting, BroTP Zuko & Toph, Child Abuse, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Misunderstandings, Ozai's A+ Parenting, Pranks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 12:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6284740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johnlockforthewin/pseuds/Johnlockforthewin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt--Prank Gone Horribly Wrong. The Gaang wants to include Zuko in their games and decide to play a prank on him. No one expects him to flip out like he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength

**Author's Note:**

> I should probably be doing schoolwork or writing some of my WIPs... >.>
> 
> So, I took a liberty or two with Zuko's story, BUT, it is my head-canon. 
> 
> Oh, like, he doesn't belong to me or whatever. (Drat.) None of them do. :(
> 
> Song for this fic: Mudshovel by Staind 
> 
> Enjoy?
> 
> ^^

“What if we put something in his drink?” Sokka suggests.

Suki smacks his arm. “We’re trying to have fun, not hurt him.”

“Ow, hey, I didn’t mean anything dangerous...” he trails off at Suki’s look.

“Hm,” Toph ponders “Maybe we just--” she cuts herself off as she senses Katara behind a corner. “Hey, Sugar Queen, we know you’re there.”

The others look around, confused, but then Katara steps around the stone wall, hair loopies swaying in the windy temple.

She comes forward sheepishly. “Um, is it okay I get in on it?”

Eyebrows raise all around, but it’s Sokka who answers, “Sure! Just didn’t think you’d want to.”

She shrugs. “Pranking? Not my thing. Pranking Zuko? I can get behind that,” she says with a smirk. “And besides, I have an idea.”

“Really? What?” Suki asks.

“Well, there’s this one thing Sokka did with snow...”

 

**

 

Zuko lets out a huff of breath along with a fireball that is truly pathetic. He groans, letting his head hang down.

“It’s okay, Zuko, I’m sure it’ll come back to you,” Aang comforts from where he is throwing successful lines of fire.

Zuko wishes his firebending was at its prior strength. They’ll have no use for him if he can’t teach Aang firebending, and then they’ll kick him out.

“Well, let’s head back, you’re probably tired by now. You’re getting really good,” Zuko says, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.  _ Perfect. Just like Azula _ .

They walk back to the temple in comfortable silence, not quite awkward, but still missing a little something. Aang suddenly sprints off, leaving Zuko confused but not too curious given how often the little Avatar runs off to do one thing or another.

He continues his journey back, sure that Aang will catch up. When he gets there, he can’t find anyone. The former prince shrugs and goes to rinse off the day’s sweat and grime.

He still can’t find anyone after that, so he just heads to his room, planning to take a short nap before dinner.

 

**

 

Giggles circle the air as the group of kids make their way to Zuko’s room.

“Shh,” Toph says, putting her hand to the wall. “He’s asleep,” she confirms.

Katara nods and steps quietly into the room. She bends some water to land on Zuko’s pants in a way that makes it look like he wet himself. All of the group’s clothing items are outside, drying from where they were just washed.  

She silently sweeps out of the room, grin on her face. The group backs away, sitting in a circle in the path of Zuko’s door to the laundry line so he’ll have to walk by all of them to get new clothes.

After a bit, Toph suddenly puts her hand to the ground. “Something’s wrong with Zuko,” she says, eyebrows scrunched. “He’s having some kind of fit, or something.”

“What?”

“Are you sure?”

“Should we check on him?”

Just then a scream rings out and the frightened kids stand and rush to Zuko’s room.

 

**

 

Zuko feels wet. He looks down. Oh, no. He wet the bed. Tears slide down his face and he doesn’t know what to do.

“M-mom!” he shouts. “Mom,” he cries.

The door opens and Zuko jumps out of bed. But then he sees it’s Azula.

Her eyes widen before they narrow with a dangerous glint. “Poor Zuzu wet his bed? You really  _ are _ a baby.”

“I am not!” the young prince shouts.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Azula calls, using her innocent voice. “Oh Da-ad!” she sing-songs.

“Azula, don’t,” Zuko pleads. “Don’t, he’ll--”

The already open door slams to the wall, Father stepping through. He glares at Zuko before turning to Azula. “What is it darling?”

“Zuko wet his bed and cried about it.”

“What? I didn’t cry!” Zuko protests.

With a sneer, Father asks, “But you did wet the bed?” A hand lands on Azula’s head. “Why don’t you go back to bed, thank you for letting me know about this.”

Azula skips out of the room, leaving Father and Zuko standing alone. Father shuts the door.

“Zuko,” he says threateningly. “How is it that you are still making trouble in the middle of the night? I might have expected this if you were two, but you are six. You know better.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Zuko’s eyes widen as he realises what he just said.

Father reaches his long arm out to grab Zuko by the ponytail. “Are you talking back to me?”

“No! Father please, put me down?” the little boy cries.

Father’s lips curl in disgust. “Now you are telling me what to do? You are pathetic. You are weak!” He shakes Zuko by the hold he has on the boy’s hair. “If you are going to act like a child, then you will be treated like a child.”

Suddenly Zuko is thrown to the floor, where he immediately grabs his aching scalp. When he looks up, he sees that Father has taken a seat on the edge of Zuko’s bed. Zuko is hauled up and situated until he lays across his father’s knees.

The smack rains down with no warning. “AH!” Zuko cries out.

“Silence,” Father hisses, landing another blow on Zuko’s backside. The boy’s little arms reach back to ward off any more, but Father just takes them up to pin them down on Zuko’s back. His free hand continues to hit Zuko.

“Father, stop!” Tears are running down Zuko’s pale face. His wrist are suddenly released and his ponytail is clutched again, pulling his head up at a painful angle.

“I. Said, Silence!” Each word is punctuated by another harsh blow. The hits shower down on Zuko so fast now that he can’t tell when one ends and the next one starts.

“Stop! Stop! Please! Father, stop!”

 

**

 

“Stop! Stop! Please! Father, stop!”

The whole group freezes at what they’ve just heard.

Zuko continues to thrash and flail, whining and whimpering. “No, no, please!” His voice was strong at first, but now it’s hoarse and his cries sound that much more pitiful and boyish. “Please!” It’s barely a whisper.

His movement slow and eventually stop, right half of his face covered in tears. His eyes open slowly, like he doesn’t want to see the world. His face turns towards the group and he stares for a moment.

He gasps and sits up quickly, staring at them in disbelief. His face contorts in anger, but he also seems confused. He looks down, gasping again and staring without a sound.

His fists clench tightly as well as his eyes, a flush rising to his face.

“Get out,” he rasps, but everyone is still frozen in shock.

Zuko opens his eyes, flinching at the sight of the group still standing there. “I said get--” he falls into a coughing fit. “Out,” he finishes sickly.

Katara steps forward. “Zuko?”

“ _ Out _ ,” he tries to scream, but it comes out as more of a strangled noise.

Katara doesn’t leave. Instead she waterbends the moisture from Zuko’s pants. He startles, flushing even more.

“Zuko, it isn’t... We played, well we tried to play a prank on you by making it seem like you...” she trails off, backing into her previous space next to Sokka.

Zuko glares at her. “A prank?” He laughs humourlessly. “Well, I’m sure you’ve had your laugh now, so can you go away?” He turns his head away.

“No, we didn’t. It wasn’t funny and we’re sorry,” Suki says. “This wasn’t what we meant to happen.”

He scoffs. “So you  _ accidentally _ made it look like I...” He shakes his head. “Right. Then what were you expecting to happen? You wanted me to walk out there to get new clothes? You wanted me embarrassed? You wanted to see me humiliated even more than the universe has already decided I deserve? Well, congratulations. And just so you know, with after what I’ve been through, it’ll take a bit more than some spilled water to humiliate me the way I’ve gotten used to for my whole life.”

“Gotten used to?” Toph asks, lacking in tact, as usual.

Zuko just sits quietly. “No. No, you don’t get to know. Maybe if you had asked, but no. You tried to hurt me.”

Katara scoffs a little. He glares at her. “What?”

“We weren’t trying to hurt you, Zuko. We were trying to help you fit in. We do stuff like this to each other all the time. So you need to get off your high horse when we were just trying to be nice.”

“Nice? That was nice?” he asks incredulously. .

“Yes! We were  _ including _ you. Can’t you accept any kindness? No! But it’s not like I should expect anything else from a spoiled prince!”

Everyone knows that she’s gone too far with that, but she doesn’t seem to understand the look on Zuko’s face. She keeps talking even as her friends try and stall her.

“You are spoiled, arrogant, ignorant, you-- you don’t know suffering and struggling, you don’t know pain like I do, like we all do. You always had everything given to you! You never had to work to get what should be a given. You don’t know!”

She’s breathing heavily by the end of it, face red, chest heaving.

Zuko looks like he’s barely holding it together.

“I don’t know pain?” he asks, deadly quiet. Katara seems to come back to herself, finally realising how angry Zuko is. “I don’t know suffering?”

He seems to want an answer, but Katara is silent now. “I don’t know PAIN!?” he yells. “Pain? You want to know pain?”

He stomps over to her, where she flinches but doesn’t quite step back.

In a dangerous whisper, “I want you to look at my face. Look at it and tell me I don’t know what pain is.”

She snaps her gaze to his. “What?” she asks. “That isn’t what I meant,” she says, getting mad again. “I meant the emotional pain of losing everything.” She touches her necklace. “Everything I loved, I left it behind.”

Zuko takes a step back. “That was your choice. You chose to leave your home and help the Avatar.”

“So? You left on purpose too!”

“Is that what you think? You think I left to hunt an impossible target on purpose? Did it never once occur to you that I might have lost everything too?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry you don’t have the royal treatment anymore! So very sorry how  _ hard  _ it must be to live on your own! So  _ sorry  _ mommy and daddy aren’t here to tuck you in at ni--”

Zuko’s eyes widen in such an intense anger at that that Katara stops mid-sentence.

He snaps.

“RAHH!” He shouts as he throw a fireball just past her head, landing and scorching the wall behind her.

She looks at him in anger and fear.

“What are you--?”

“SHUT UP! You want to talk about how my mom and dad tuck me in? You want to talk about them and how they treated me? Fine! You wanna know? I lived my entire life afraid of my father. He hates me, always has.

“You met Azula, haven’t you? She  _ is  _ a psychopath. She always has been, even growing up. But she was perfect, she’s the one you think I am. The spoiled, rotten, evil one. I had to live being scared that my father would kill me at any minute because I WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH!

“I have never been good enough for anything. He was going have me executed as an infant because he thought I wasn’t going to be a firebender. He tried to have me killed for a mistake  _ he _ made. The only reason I’m alive is because my mother took my place.” His voice breaks, eyes welling up with tears.

“He was going to kill me. My mother, the only one in my whole life other than Uncle that has ever cared about me, she sacrificed herself in my place. She’s gone, and it’s my fault.” He snaps his head to Katara, glaring hard.

“You wanna know why I was so upset at your stupid prank? I had a nightmare, a flashback. When I was six, a child, it happened. It happened so Azula told our father and you know what he did to me? He beat me! He’d always struck me when I misbehaved, but he beat me until I was unconscious. I was six years old. That was the first time my father hurt me like that, but it wasn’t the last. After he became Firelord, he could get away with anything he wanted to do to me. He was finally allowed to leave his mark on me and no one could or would say anything to help me.

“I don’t know pain? Every day I was slapped around, tugged by my hair, kicked in the stomach. If not by my father than someone else by his orders. And I didn’t know it was because he hated me. I thought it was him expressing his love.”

Zuko trails off, voice scratchy and sore, tears slipping silently down his pale cheeks.

“I was so deluded and brainwashed that when I was hunting Aang, a twelve year old boy, I thought I was doing the right thing.” His voice is quiet, painfully quiet and hurt.

“You lost everything to help Aang, but the only reason I was looking for him to begin with was because I was stupid again and my father set the task for me that I could come home once I found and captured the Avatar. At the time, everyone still believed the Avatar was forever dead. I thought my father was giving me a chance, but he really never wanted me back.

“You tried to embarrass me with your prank, but nothing will compare to the time he hurt me, burned me, took all I had left, took something I can never get back, in front of the royal court and nobles. He held me by my hair and hurt me, took... He burned my face. He purposefully chose my  _ face  _ to display my stupidity.

“After he was... done, he threw me to the ground and announced that I was banished from the Fire Nation unless I could find the Avatar. He said I was a coward because I refused to fight him.”

Zuko glares hard at the ground, turning away with smoke coming out his nose.

“All I did was try to save the division! I was trying to help! And he decided that speaking out of turn should be punished with an Agni Kai! He burned me and hurt me and took my innocence and for so long, I thought it was because he cared. I thought he loved me! That’s all I wanted from him. All I wanted was for him not to think I’m worthless!”

His head tilts back and fire streams out his mouth in an impressive plume. His fists are clenched and he’s shaking visibly, but no one knows what to do or say. Katara is shocked, hand over her mouth in horror.

Zuko’s shoulders shake with aborted sobs. He doesn’t hear as everyone watches in surprise Toph stepping forward and wrapping her little arms around his middle. He flinches, looking around to find the disturbance. He sees her face and stops the shout about to escape. She’s crying, softly and quietly, but there are tears streaming down her face.

“I, I can feel the hurt in your body. I feel the pain in your bones. It hurts my body, feeling so much anguish emanating from you.”

He looks confused, but finally relaxes and accepts the hug the tough blind girl gives him. He squeezes the slightest bit tighter, letting out everything he’s been holding in for so long. Sobs and soft wails escape him, and he falls to his knees.

The sun is rising and the light filters through to touch his face, highlighting the sparkles of his tears. As the sunlight washes over him, he seems to calm, taking deep breaths and letting them out in a controlled manner. Pulling back from Toph, he stands once more, legs shaky.

Toph lunges forward again, gripping him tight. This time, though, Sokka, and Suki gather around too. Katara hesitantly steps to the group hug. Sokka’s arm pokes out and drags her in.

“Zuko, I...”

He looks at her.

“I forgive you,” he says simply, the thought of Uncle in the front of his thoughts. That time when he stood up for Zuko when Zhao wouldn’t accept defeat.

_Even in exile, my nephew is more honourable than you._

Zuko smiles the smallest amount.

_ Honour. _

“I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I would do anything to right the wrongs I’ve done. If I could change, or take back the pain I caused, I would. If I could undo every wrong move that I’ve made, I would. If I could take all the shame in me to the grave, take the blame and fix things, I would. I would do anything to prove myself to you.”

_ My wounds will never go away, they’ll never heal. _

The hug gets tighter and words surround him.

“Just help Aang.”

“Don’t hurt us anymore.”

“You’ve already proved yourself.”

_ All that I’ve done. _

_ All that I was. _

“How?” he asks quietly.

“You proved yourself when you came into the group. We were wary, but you’ve been nothing but helpful. It’s obvious that Aang is learning, too,” Toph replies.

_ I don’t know how I got this way _ .

“But...”

_ Can I really change? _

“You’ve changed,” Sokka says, surprising the others. “You have been helpful. Really.”

_ I’m so close but everyone seems so far away. _

The group releases from the hug, leaving Zuko confused with dried tears on his face.

_ I’m tired _ .

“Hey.”

He looks up to the face of the voice. Suki smiles sweetly and tilts her head. “You’ll get through it. I’m the leader of my warriors. I can see the strength in you.”

_ Strength? But I’ve been so weak, done so many things wrong. _

“Strength isn’t about what you’ve done,” Toph tells him, seemingly reading his thoughts. “It’s about having the power to do something different than what you’ve done. And let me just say, I like this difference.” She smirks, blank eyes somehow full of mirth.

Zuko’s eyes close and he feels a tear slip out of his good eye.

_ You must never allow yourself to give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. _

_ That is the meaning of inner strength. _

Zuko feels his fire bloom and spread in his body, feels the power and energy. His head tilts to the ceiling and he breathes out a ribbon of beautiful orange flames. They fly and spark, full of life and energy, power not from the muscle, but the breath. Not from hatred, but...

Inner strength.

_ I am strong. _

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos are appreciated. Thank chu! 
> 
> ^^


End file.
